Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Popovich on Trump: "I Feel Like We've Been Invaded by Another Power"

How does it make you feel to hear or see the words "President Donald Trump"?

San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich says the post-Trump world has left him feeling this way: "Some days I feel like we’ve been invaded by another power and taken over (by people) who don’t feel the same."

“It’s a strange land.”

Pop's comments came after a question Monday, before the Spurs' win in Indiana, about how his upbringing affects his worldview; the coach grew up in a blue-collar, racially diverse East Chicago neighborhood that he's described as "a white family here, a Puerto Rican family there, a Polish or Czech family over there." Eventually, Popovich made his way to Trump, calling the president's behavior "unacceptable and really disgusting."

“(Trump’s) personality and his inability to get over himself and form his words and his decisions," Popovich said. "That’s what scares me.”

Popovich is, of course, no stranger to spontaneous bouts of political pontificating. Just days after Trump's election, he let loose the kind of emotional word vomit coming out of many millions of confused, frightened and deeply wounded people who did not vote for Trump and think we've entered the Upside Down. Or, as Popovich put it, "We are Rome."

Earlier this month, when the topic was Black History Month, Pop used his pulpit to call racism "our national sin" and reiterate that white people in this country still enjoy a "monstrous advantage."

This time around, Popovich seems particularly freaked by the direction of the federal government under a Trump Administration, and delivers what sounds like a crack against Trump's merry gang of under-qualified and/or conflict-ridden cabinet appointees: “The situation now, I find a lot of people are in charge – or will be in charge shortly when they’re nominated – have very little clue about what many, many people have to go through to live in this world."